CHERUB: The Syndicate
by bobdat
Summary: George goes Down Under in his most difficult mission yet. His task; to befriend a twelve-year-old tearaway at one of Melbourne's most prestigious schools. The problem; the boy's father is one of the most dangerous men in Australia. Book III in the CHERUB: Knight series.
1. 1: Chase

**1: Crowd**

_March 2011_

Letty took a few deep breaths to steady herself. She didn't want to let nerves overcome her at this crucial phase. Once she was breathing normally again, she expertly tapped the keys on her netbook, setting it to copy the entire contents of the hard drive she had wired it up to.

Someone knocked on the door of the cubicle.

"Sorry, someone's in here," Letty replied in her best New York accent. Whoever it was went away and she breathed a sigh of relief. The netbook said there were eight minutes to go until the entire hard drive was going to be copied, and Letty thought that they were probably the most nerve-wracking eight minutes of her life. She could hear people going in and out of the bathroom, but because she couldn't see them, any of them could be an enemy. Most of them just seemed to be regular women working in the office, so she was left alone after that, staring at the flashing blue bar and wishing more than anything that it would hurry up. To pass the time she sent a quick email to her best friends Jemima and Beatrice, reminding them that she'd be back soon and was expecting a big welcome. She briefly considered sending it to George too, but he never checked his email account so she decided against it.

When it finished copying, she unplugged the hard drive and netbook and shoved them into her bag. After flushing, she stepped out and washed her hands, purely for appearances. She'd been too nervous to actually use the toilet.

"All good up there?" a voice whispered in her ear.

Letty pressed down on the tiny button behind her ear so she could respond. "It's all copied. Now I just have to replace the hard drive and get out of here."

"Good job," the calm voice of John Jones, her mission controller replied.

Letty stepped out of the toilets and tugged at the hem of her dress. It wasn't really warm enough for a dress, and the weather in Chicago could be variable at this time of year, but it was too late to change now. She strolled back into the office and was hit by one of the strangest sights she thought she'd ever see; a vista of downtown Chicago and the strong blueness of Lake Michigan from more than a thousand feet up, but the river which normally wound its way through downtown had been dyed a bright green colour in honour of St. Patrick's Day. She wished she could take a picture, but she didn't have a camera on her.

Nobody in the office looked at her as she made her way to a walled-off area. Children weren't exactly common in downtown offices, but she'd been to the office before and anyone trying to ask her if she was lost was usually met with a tongue-lashing from the boss.

The desktop computer was as she'd left it, so it was easy to slot the hard drive back into place. She produced a tiny screwdriver from her bag and screwed everything into place, before closing up the case and leaving the desktop exactly where she'd found it. With luck, nobody would ever know she'd been inside it. She did a last minute check to make sure nothing was out of place.

"Come in, Letty," John's voice said, and Letty paused in the office to answer.

"What's up?"

"We've got movement down here at street level. Our guys have entered the foyer and they're practically guaranteed to eyeball you if you go down now."

Letty felt panic rising, but she forced herself to stay calm. "Advice?"

"I'll manufacture a diversion in exactly four minutes. You come down in the lift and I'll time it so you can slip past," John said quickly.

"Roger," Letty replied, smiling inwardly at the way John called elevators 'lifts'. She headed for the nearest one, ensuring her netbook was safely stowed in her bag. Nobody used the elevators much during the day, so she got one to herself and pressed the button for the ground floor. Descending a thousand feet in a windowless box always made her stomach jolt, but the ride was usually very smooth. The only problem was, the thick walls of the lift cut off her communications, so she just had to hope that John had the diversion going.

The elevator doors slid open and Letty stepped out, trying to walk as if she didn't have any cares in the world. There was a commotion on one side of the lobby which Letty assumed was John's diversion, but she didn't pause to watch. She headed directly for the nearest exit and felt a breath of cool air as she pushed her way out into downtown Chicago. A train rattled by on the raised tracks, its brakes making a racket, and she headed due east, having to impatiently wait at a crosswalk before she could put distance between herself and the building.

"... hear me?"

Letty pressed her finger to her ear. "Sorry, can you repeat? There was one of those trains."

"Someone's spotted you and is following you out of the east doors. Try and get in a taxi and head for O'Hare airport; have you got the fare?"

"Got enough," Letty replied, dicing with death as she ran across the road and narrowly dodged an oncoming car.

"Try and lose them; we don't want them to follow the taxi."

John didn't have to tell her. Letty had seen first-hand how dangerous the people they were dealing with could be, and she didn't fancy being dragged out of a taxi and made to answer questions about the sensitive data saved on her netbook.

She didn't want to run because it looked suspicious, so she just walked quickly. She had no idea where the nearest taxi rank was and hailing one in the street was dodgy at the best of times. It was only when she heard a shout from behind her and saw two men in suits sprinting flat-out towards her that she finally broke into a run. She'd worn flat pumps because they were the only thing that went with the dress, but they were impossible to move quickly in, so she kicked them off and ran in socks. The pavements were probably covered in all kinds of horrible stuff, but it had to be better than being caught.

The men were going to catch up if she ran in a straight line, so she ducked to the right and followed the line of the trains, weaving in and out of the metal supports before making another hard left. She could still hear shouts behind her so she didn't slow down, and she picked up speed on the relatively clear pavement.

The next turning took her across another road, but mercifully there wasn't any traffic. The street ahead led past the front of a hotel and she briefly considered ducking inside; they couldn't grab her there. The only problem was, they could wait outside for her…

Looking ahead, she saw a distinctive green sign with 'Michigan Ave.' on it and she had a brainwave. She flashed past a surprised hotel doorman and into the lobby, which was mostly done out in marble. Her socked feet skidded on the polished surface and she was sure she was going to topple over, but she regained her balance and hit carpet, which allowed her to speed up again. Her brainwave was this; the hotel was on the corner of a smaller street and Michigan Avenue, which was the major street in Chicago. The hotel was therefore guaranteed to have an entrance on Michigan Avenue, and she was right. She sped through it, slowing down only to push it open, and then she found herself on the pavement again. There was no sign of the men, but it didn't take a genius to work out where she'd gone. She set off up the street, weaving in and out of shoppers and business people out for lunch, trying hard not to trip over anything.

Her plan was to run up the street until she came across a crosswalk which was on green, but she spotted a couple of suspicious-looking men coming out of a street ahead. They had obviously been running and while they might not be after her, she couldn't take the chance. With nothing more than a brief glance to her left, Letty sprinted out into the flowing traffic, feeling like she was playing a giant, scary video game. A van nearly splattered her, but she dodged at the last second and took advantage of a break in the traffic on the other side to dash madly for the safety of the pavement. She made it in one piece, although she felt like she'd suffered a couple of minor heart attacks in the process, but there was no time to rest. She carried on up the street, looking around desperately for a taxi, but there were none in sight.

With nowhere else to go, she cut to the right and sprinted at full pelt through the park. People gave her odd looks as she went, but she didn't notice them, concentrating only on where she was putting her feet. The panic was coming again because she knew she wasn't going to be able to find a taxi. She turned a corner and suddenly skidded to a blissful halt. She'd run straight into the huge crowds of the St. Patrick's Day parade and, as she pushed between people and disappeared into the mass, there was absolutely no chance of them finding her amongst the thousands lining the route.

"John?" she asked, pressing on her communicator.

"Loud and clear," he replied.

"I'm just near Buckingham Fountain in a huge crowd. I've lost them, probably for good."

"Excellent work. According to my laptop your nearest taxi rank is north, so just follow the crowd until you get there," he said.

"Meet you at the airport," Letty said, pausing for a moment to get her breath back. She checked and her netbook was still safely in her bag, but the pause in her movement meant someone stepped on her foot in a ten-hole boot and made her bite her lip. Talk about a close call. She turned her head and looked up at the office tower she'd just departed, marvelling at how far she'd come in such a short time. There _had_ to be a navy shirt in this.


	2. 2: Quiet

**2: Quiet**

_August 2011_

George pushed off the side of the pool again and tried to swim as far as possible before surfacing. He messed up one of his kicks and got out of sequence, forcing him to surface and gasp a breath, trying to get him rhythm back.

"Knight, if I see your head above the surface one more time on this length you'll be cleaning the changing rooms for a month!" the swimming instructor, a bulky black-shirt who everyone called French, bawled as George started his strokes again. It was an empty threat; it would need a miracle for George to stay underwater for almost an entire length when his muscles were already killing him from two hours of intense swimming practice. He dived under again and resolved to keep going until the last possible second so he could avoid a gruelling hour scraping the tiles in the changing rooms.

When he did finally take another breath, French had moved onto another victim, so George was off the hook. It was the last of ten timed lengths of the campus swimming pool and anyone who finished outside the time limit ran a lap for every second they were behind. George was already exhausted and was convinced he was outside the limit, but every second counted, so he pushed through the pain and concentrated on his strokes until his fingers finally bumped into the edge, stopping the electronic timer. He took a few gasping breaths and trod water until he had the strength to haul himself out.

"Passable," French said as George pushed his sodden hair back and looked over at the timing board. He'd squeaked by with less than two seconds to go, but he didn't care. No laps was no laps, so he just gave French a cocky smile as he strolled towards the boys' changing rooms, looking forward to a soak in the bath back in his room and then an evening of PlayStation and no homework.

"Looks like you just made it," George's friend Ralph said, handing George a towel. Both lads were stocky and had good endurance, but Ralph had hit his first growth spurt of puberty and was already four inches taller than George, which meant that he'd finished almost thirty seconds faster.

"Barely," George replied, wiping his face. "French is a total nutcase, my muscles are gonna be wrecked tomorrow morning."

Ralph just laughed. "Looks like someone needs an intensive fitness course rather than all-night _Gran Turismo_."

George didn't bother to reply, dropping his towel on the bench and heading for the showers to wash off the chlorine while Ralph chuckled and followed him a few seconds later.

The summer holidays is always a busy period for CHERUB missions, since it's much easier to get invited round to a target's house when their kids are bored with four weeks still go to until September. The downside for the Cherubs left on campus is that it's a quiet period, and when this coincided with the gap between two basic training sessions, the instructors were finding new and imaginative ways to torture the agents they'd been left with. This year it was a two-week intensive swimming course to build fitness, and George's recent spell of maximum chocolate puddings and minimum exercise left him struggling. To make things worse, his best friend Rex was away on an exciting-sounding mission and had missed all of it.

When they made their way out of the swimming complex, Letty was waiting for them. An excellent swimmer who'd finished miles ahead of almost everyone else, she lived opposite George in the main building and took every opportunity to make fun of him, and this was no exception.

"News just in; George Knight confirmed world's worst swimmer," she said, holding her hand in front of her mouth like a microphone. "One thousand laps await him for being a fat slob."

George shook his head. "Two seconds to spare."

Letty looked disappointed. "Ah well, there's always next time."

"I'm _so_ glad these two weeks are over," Ralph said, speaking for the three of them. "I never want to swim anywhere ever again."

"My hair has been a mess since I've had to wash it every day," Letty moaned.

"I don't know what you're on about," George replied, "Your hair is frizzy anyway, so it looks exactly the same."

Letty ran a hand through her curls and shrugged. "You're a boy, you're too dumb to understand."

They walked back to the main building together, where Letty left them and headed for the laundry room.

"Some of us don't have nasty-smelling piles of dirty clothes lying all over their rooms," Letty said. "And I've gotta keep my navy shirts in pristine condition."

Letty had been awarded a navy shirt for a mission in the US and the novelty of being senior to her friends was yet to wear off. George had run out of funny comebacks after a week and now just ignored her.

"See you later," Ralph said half-heartedly to her as he and George waited for the lift. "Any news from Rex?"

"Nah. He says he's doing well and stuff, but nothing really more than last time," George replied. "He's so lucky, missing all of this training stuff."

Ralph nodded and pressed the button for the seventh floor once they were in. "There are rumours of another training exercise to come after this."

George stared at the ceiling. "So long as it doesn't involve swimming, I couldn't care less."

He left Ralph once they got out of the lift and then headed for his room, which was right at the end of the corridor. His end of the corridor was usually lively, but with so many people away on missions it had been subdued recently. George consoled himself with the thought that there would probably be a couple of good parties when everyone got back, as he unlocked his room and chucked his swimming kit straight onto a pile of dirty washing. It would probably sit there and fester for a couple of weeks, but all George wanted to do was relax until it was time for dinner and then stuff his face. Everything else could wait.

He'd hardly even got the PlayStation fired up when there was a knock on his door. He silently bet ten pounds that it would be Letty to wind him up, but when he opened the door it turned out to be Beatrice, a girl he'd been on basic training with. She wasn't very tall and got teased about her height, but she more than made up for it with skill and no boy on campus wanted to come up against her in the dojo.

"George!" she said brightly. "Got a minute?"

"I suppose," George shrugged. "Depends what for."

"In our swimming session this morning, some lippy little red-shirt was mouthing off, making fun of me because I'm in the lower class than the rest of the grey-shirts. I threatened to beat him to a pulp but the instructors got involved and I got two extra lengths, which obviously this kid thought was hilarious."

"How is this any of my concern?" George asked, mind drifting back towards the PlayStation.

"I wanna get him back but I need a hand. Letty doesn't wanna help and you're next best," Beatrice explained.

George shook his head. "No offence Beatrice, but your schemes are terrible. I'm practically guaranteed to get punishment laps when it goes wrong."

"Come on George, we didn't get into trouble that time we got out of double history."

This wasn't exactly true; they had avoided double history and they hadn't been officially punished, but they'd been set extra homework to catch up and George had a suspicion the teacher had deliberately doubled it to punish them. However, Beatrice had been hanging it over his head ever since.

"I'm punishment-free at the moment and the last thing I want is cleaning duty or something," George told her, but the look on Beatrice's face told him she'd had an especially creative idea for revenge and part of him wanted to hear it.

"Let me just explain it. You can back out if you want," Beatrice said firmly, pushing past him into his room. "Trust me."

The plan was simple enough: Beatrice had found a disgustingly mouldy pair of shorts in the changing rooms and was planning to sneak into the red-shirt's room during dinner and hide them at the back of his wardrobe. After a couple of hours in there everything would smell disgusting and red shirts were merciless whenever something embarrassing happened to one of their friends. All George had to do was keep look-out. He didn't really want to be involved, but Beatrice had recently developed a crazy streak and his desire to see it in action outweighed his common sense. When they met up outside the junior block during dinner, Beatrice was holding a carrier bag at arm's length.

"All set?" George asked, doing his best to look casual. He caught a whiff of the bag and almost gagged, causing Beatrice to laugh.

"He's gone and so has his roommate. All you have to do is wait here and if they come back, stall him for a couple of minutes."

George shook his head. "How am I supposed to recognise him? I've no idea who he is."

Beatrice paused, obviously not having thought of this, and George groaned. Her plans were always half-baked and she invariably got punished when it went wrong.

"Listen, give me the shorts and I'll put them in the wardrobe. You keep look-out," George said, tutting. "What's the room number?"

"Eight. His name's Jared something-or-other, so make sure you put it in the right wardrobe," Beatrice replied, handing him the bag. "Hurry up."

George didn't really feel right playing a trick on a little kid, but the red-shirts could be vicious when they wanted to be and he felt it would help make up for all of the snide comments he'd occasionally got from the younger kids.

Room eight was easy to find and the junior rooms didn't lock, so George just pushed the door open. It would have been safer to knock, but he could always claim he was returning something. Nobody was inside, though, so he shut the door behind him and scanned through some piles of exercise books to determine which side belonged to Jared. Being back in the junior block brought back memories of his days as a red-shirt, but he ignored his reminiscing and shoved the carrier bag deep into the back of the cluttered wardrobe and headed out, glad it was a fairly easy job.

"Let's go," he said to Beatrice as he left the junior block. "I'm absolutely starving."

"Thanks George," Beatrice said, pounding her fist into her palm. "Let's see how he likes this little bit of revenge."

George shook his head but laughed. Beatrice was always fun, even if she was sometimes a total nutter, and as they headed for the cafeteria, George realised he'd had more fun than if he'd just sat in front of the TV instead.

The cafeteria was always a laugh, and with the swimming course finally over, practically everyone was in a good mood which just added to the atmosphere. There wasn't a queue since they were late, so George grabbed a tray and loaded up on the best of what was left before sliding into a seat at his usual table with Letty and Ralph.

"Where've you been?" Letty asked through a mouthful of lasagne.

"In the middle of a really tough race on the PlayStation," George replied, using his fork to churn up his own serving of lasagne into a satisfying mulch.

"Boys," Letty tutted as Beatrice sat down beside her. George noticed that Beatrice didn't get questioned, but he ignored it, preferring to concentrate on his dinner.

It wasn't long before a giant hand clapped onto his shoulder. George panicked, thinking it was someone come to drag him off to his handler's office for his part in Beatrice's plan, and in the process of turning round to see who it was he almost knocked over his glass of squash. Disaster was averted by Letty lunging across the table and saving it, slopping only a tiny amount.

George looked up, expecting Kazakov or Pike, but instead he got the friendlier face of his friend Michael, whose huge chest was stretching his black CHERUB t-shirt.

"Scared ya, huh?" Michael laughed.

George shook his head, trying to recover his composure. "Just made me jump, that's all."

"I hear you only just passed the swimming course," Michael grinned, squeezing George's shoulder like a vice. "Sounds to me like you're not in peak condition, so the instructors are putting you on the extra course, another week plus a pass/fail test."

Fifty percent sure it was a wind-up, George tried to act cool. "Yeah, as if," he replied, pushing Michael's hand away, but when he turned back to face everyone at the table, they had deadly serious expressions.

"Didn't they tell you? The whole point was to get your fitness up, so if you're still lacking, there's an extra course," Letty said gravely.

Ralph nodded. "Bad luck, mate. Still, it'll be over in a week."

George could feel anger boiling up and launched into a rant, pounding his fist on the table. "This is ridiculous, I passed the course even if it was close, and even then, the reason I was slow was because I was so knackered from all those extra lengths I'd done earlier, it was nothing to do with my fitness, I'm perfectly fit and if they think I'm gonna-"

He was cut off by a roar of laughter from the others at the table, with Michael laughing loudest.

"Got ya," he grinned, slapping him gently on the cheek. "Knew you'd fall for it."

George could see the funny side and joined in with the laughter as he went back to his dinner. "Screw you guys, I was practically wetting myself…"

"Michael set it up with us while you were gone," Letty explained. "Your reaction was priceless."

"How did Beatrice know?" George asked, waving to Michael as the older agent headed back to his own friends. "She arrived after me."

Beatrice smirked. "I just caught on when he said it and played along. I was sure nobody was stupid enough to fall for it, but you continue to amaze me."


	3. 3: Dark

**3: Dark**

All of the Cherubs had a break before lessons started again the next week. Usually George would have spent a couple of days playing games in his room or joining in the occasional football match when the weather was dry, but he'd been on campus for six months and he'd got bored of that. Instead, he made his way down to the technical department to meet with Terry Bradshaw, the head boffin on campus.

"Morning George," Terry said, putting down his mug of tea as George sauntered into the office. "How was fitness training?"

"Brutal," George replied, cracking a grin. "Looks like you'd have benefitted more than me, anyway."

Terry wasn't overweight, but his age had given him a rounded belly. "Cheeky, better watch that tongue or I'll have you running laps."

George took a seat on an ancient chair with foam falling out of it and swung his legs. "So, anything going on today?"

"Just the usual golf cart maintenance and a few tweaks to the pool cars. Apparently someone on a mission in Scotland has bashed up one of the nippy Volkswagens, but it won't be back here until the afternoon."

"Shame," George replied. He'd got interested in cars on his last mission and had done enough good work in the technical department that Terry trusted him with repairs, so a bit of cosmetic work on a pool car was probably something he would have been trusted to do by himself.

"Anyway, let's get cracking. I want to have most of it done by lunchtime," Terry announced, draining his tea and getting up. "Go and fetch one of the carts that are lined up by the doors and bring it into the workshop, if you don't mind."

George jumped up and jogged over to the cart. He enjoyed working with Terry, who was always nice and never handed out punishments for the slightest thing, and actually being helpful on campus meant that he wasn't the first one picked when the staff were handing out annoying tasks like supervising red-shirts or shifts in the recycling centre.

Terry was going through the finer details of the exhaust system on a van that CHERUB had modified when there were a series of loud knocks on the door of the workshop.

"See who that it, George," Terry said, his voice muffled by the spanner he was holding in his mouth.

George rolled out from under the van and wandered over to the door. Waiting for him was Rose Cameron, his handler and an all-round hardcase who never gave George an inch.

"Morning Terry," she shouted, spotting his legs protruding from under the van.

"Hello Rose," Terry replied, "Give me a minute."

"Don't worry, it's George I want," she said, before turning the evil eye onto George. "Young man, aren't you supposed to be somewhere else?"

George racked his brains. "Um…"

Rose tutted. "Does a meeting in the mission preparation centre ring any bells?"

Usually George would have remembered whatever it was Rose was going on about and been sent on his way, but this time he really was clueless. "Sorry miss, I still don't know."

She produced a yellow swipe card which George instantly recognised. Usually getting one meant you'd landed a mission, and he could feel himself getting excited.

"Don't get your hopes up, I'm told it's only a training mission," Rose said sternly. "You should have been told about it last night. I got this off the desk in your room."

George grinned sheepishly. He'd actually spent the previous evening playing FIFA in Ralph's room until the early hours before falling asleep there, and he'd only been back to his room for a quick shower and change of clothes. Anything on his desk had escaped his notice.

Rose rolled her eyes. "Anyway, the briefing started fifteen minutes ago, so you're going to have to run there. Kazakov sounded pretty angry on the phone."

George grabbed the card and was about to set off when Rose grabbed his arm.

"Not so fast. I've heard a certain story about a trick being played on an innocent red-shirt last night, and I'd bet my last pound you're involved somehow, so let me tell you, if I can find evidence it was you, you'll be running laps until I retire, understood?"

George just shrugged. "No idea what you mean, miss."

"Better hope so," Rose said, giving him another evil glare before letting him go. George had the sense to sprint away before she decided he was guilty.

He was out of breath by the time he arrived at right room in the mission preparation centre, but he didn't waste any time, pushing the door open immediately and looking around. He was relieved to see Letty and Ralph sitting there, along with Rex's little sister Kimberley, who had recently qualified as an agent. There was an older black-shirt girl with long blonde hair who George didn't recognise giving him a scowl, and Kazakov was sitting behind the desk. His face was perfectly calm, which was worse than angry.

"Ah, George, good to see you. Your fellow agents have been sitting in silence for twenty minutes now, so I'm sure they're relieved to see you too." He cracked a smile, which gave George chills. "Before you sit down, you're exactly one thousand, one hundred and thirty seconds late, so I think we'd all appreciate you giving us one press-up for each of those, hmm?"

George's eyes boggled. "But sir-"

"If you haven't started within the next second, it'll be my boot up your jacksie!" Kazakov roared, slamming his hand onto the desk. George dropped to the floor and began doing press-ups, feeling like a complete idiot as the others stared at him. Kazakov began counting and George knew he had no chance of doing a thousand, but he'd just completed a fitness course and a weak showing meant he'd probably be top of the list for extra sessions. He quickly got to thirty before tiring, and as he struggled towards forty, Kazakov told him to stop.

"We'd better get on with the briefing, so sit down," he said, pointing to the only available chair. George sat down, feeling uncomfortably sweaty.

"Okay then, now we're all here, I'll introduce what's going to happen.

"Tonight you'll be driven to the urban warfare compound, which some of you might have used before, along with three other teams of five like yourselves. Each is made up of one experienced agent, plus a navy-shirt who is second in command, and then three grey-shirts. The exercise will start at 2000 hours and last until 0800. The premise is very simple; each team will be given a flag like this one." He paused and showed them a flag which looked like the type you found on golf courses, but much smaller.

"To win, you must get the other teams' flags without losing yours. Having three flags at the end of the exercise would guarantee you a win, having two means you might win, so long as no other team also has two.

"Other than that, tactics are up to you. You'll be dropped at random somewhere away from the other teams, and the whole of the compound is available to you. Any questions?"

Letty raised her hand and Kazakov looked at her.

"Um, are there any rules about combat?"

Kazakov nodded. "You'll be using simulated ammunition so it'll be full-body suits with helmets. You can use any force to get the flags, excepting shooting at point-blank range or, obviously, torture. Deliberately causing injuries that require treatment will result in severe punishment. Anything else?"

Nobody said anything, so Kazakov lifted his huge body out of the chair and headed for the door. "I'll leave it up to you from now on, but you need to be assembled at the front gate at 1900 hours. What you do until then is up to you, but this room is available for… about four minutes. You would have had longer, but one of your teammates was very late."

Once he'd gone, they sat in silence for a couple of moments, mostly so Letty could glare at George, but when she opened her mouth to speak, the black-shirt girl interrupted.

"Alright, I didn't realise I was gonna be stuck with a team of little kids, so listen up," she said sharply. "I'm Katie Dark, if you don't know already, and I'm the team leader, so I don't want any crap from you. I give the orders, and this navy-shirt here is second in command, so if she gives the rest of you an order, you listen to that too."

"I'm Letty," the younger girl said, smiling.

"Okay, Lett. Now, I don't expect any of you have done the simulated ammunition before, so let me tell you from experience, it hurts a lot and you will have huge bruises this time tomorrow, so try not to get shot. Now we're gonna get thrown out of here in a couple of minutes, so I'd suggest everyone gets some lunch now, then try and sleep for a few hours in the afternoon and we'll meet up at four o'clock in my room, which is on the sixth floor. Work for you?"

George didn't feel like questioning her, so she just nodded and got to her feet. "Alright, see you later. If you can't sleep, get some practice at the firing range, but I expect all the other teams will be doing that."

She swept out of the door, leaving the other four to follow her.

"Can't believe we have to do yet another training exercise," Letty muttered to George as they left.

"You're telling me," George sighed. "Loads of the older agents complain about the simulated ammunition really hurting, too."

"Plus, that Katie girl seems kindof mean. I don't know if she'll be much of a team leader," Letty added. "She might just leave us to get shot."

George shrugged. "I think there's some kind of punishment for doing badly, so she'll probably want to avoid it."

Letty nodded. "Hope so. Anyway, I'm gonna sleep if we're going to be up all night. I'll eat later."

"I'll probably do the same," George agreed, "especially since I doubt we'll be stopping to eat during the exercise."

When they got back to the accommodation block, George took a detour via Michael's room. Michael was old enough to have been on multiple training exercises and George was hoping he'd be exempt from this one so he could give good advice. It took him a few moments to open the door and George wondered whether he was out, but when the door opened, George spotted an aerial map of the training compound on his desk and Lucy, another senior agent who'd been on George's last mission, sitting on his bed.

"Did you get roped into the exercise too?" Lucy grinned as George stepped into the room. "Bad luck. Seems like I'm the only one taking it easy this evening."

"I thought you two hated each other?" George asked. There had been a major blow-up when Michael and Lucy had broken up which had resulted in punishments all round.

Michael shrugged. "I do hate her, but she's not on any team and she knows as much about the compound as anyone, so I asked if she'd give me a hand planning for my team."

George grinned. "I'd forgotten you would be a team leader. Hope you come last."

"Whose team are you on?" Lucy asked, rolling up the map of the compound.

"Some girl named Katie Dark," George replied.

Both Michael and Lucy grimaced.

"Ouch," Michael said, shaking his head. "She's gonna be tough on you."

"Why? She seemed pretty harsh in our briefing, but is she just gonna abandon us?" George asked, feeling worried.

Lucy shook her head. "Nah, you'll probably do alright, but she's pretty much merciless. If you mess up, I wouldn't put it past her to shoot you or something."

George flung himself onto Michael's bed and stretched out. "What's her deal? I don't wanna go on the exercise if she's a psycho."

Michael began explaining as he walked through to his bathroom to take a leak. "I haven't spoken to her much outside of lessons for a while, actually, but a whole load of stuff happened before you came to Cherub."

"Shut the damn door," Lucy said, disgusted. "At least have some respect."

Michael just laughed. "Not my problem darling."

George snorted and got a smack from Lucy for his trouble. She hadn't totally forgiven him for his part in their break-up, so George instantly went quiet.

"Anyway, her older brother, some guy named Rob, was an agent here when I was a grey shirt," Michael continued. "I think he'd be about twenty by now. He was on a mission once and a truck ran over his arm or something, so it was completely pulped."

"I thought it was a tractor or something," Lucy added.

"Like it matters," Michael shrugged, drying his hands. "They thought he was gonna lose it, which would obviously end his CHERUB career, but some American surgeons were trialling a new kind of reconstructive surgery and they flew over here and actually fixed it, although he had thirty metal pins in his arm.

"He had five in his hand," Lucy agreed. "He had this insane killer punch for ages after he'd got the muscle back in his arm."

"He never did combat stuff because his arm was fragile, though," Michael said, sitting in his desk chair and wheeling himself around the room. "After a while, he was on some mission in Europe and by a freak coincidence, a scientist recognised the reconstructive work from a journal or something and he ended up being abducted by Russians or something. There was this huge manhunt and MI6 and the CIA or whoever were all involved. When they rescued him, he'd been tortured and he wasn't really right in the head, and he failed a psychiatric test."

"I remember that," Lucy nodded. "I'd just got back from a mission and it all hot news on campus, although he was hardly ever out of the medical department."

Michael scratched his head. "I think after that he overdosed on some drugs and got discharged from CHERUB, but I don't know if that was just a rumour or not. But anyway, he was seriously messed up and his sister ended up going all tough-girl."

Lucy tutted. "As if you'd know. She was actually distraught for ages; her brother had disappeared and been tortured, then he tried to kill himself. She almost left CHERUB but they persuaded her to stay on. She was always crying."

"So that's why she'll probably kick your ass if you don't do well," Michael grinned. "I wouldn't mention her brother while she's holding one of those rifles, though, not if you wanna live."

"She's been in a lot of trouble for breaking rules in the past, so you should be careful," Lucy added. "I actually thought she was leaving Cherub, she must be nearly eighteen by now."

George chewed one of his fingernails. Lucy and Michael had done nothing to reassure him about Katie, and now he was afraid she was going to snap or something.

"Anyway, I've gotta come up with a plan for this exercise, so you'd better disappear," Michael said, getting up and grabbing the map again. "Next time I see you, I'll be stealing your flag."

"Thanks," George replied, grinning. "Maybe you'll get yours back from us, but I doubt it." As he got up, he bounced on the bed and the pillow flipped up, revealing a black bra which Lucy lunged for, but George was faster.

"Hate each other my backside!" George said triumphantly, waving the bra just out of Lucy's reach. "You dirty dogs."

Michael roared with laughter, but Lucy pinned George to the wall and gave him a brutal punch in the gut, doubling him over.

"I don't know what you're laughing for," Lucy shouted, rounding on Michael. "You're not getting any more help from me."

She stormed out and George coughed, trying to regain his breath. He was afraid Michael would be angry, but he just laughed more.

"She wasn't exactly helping with the exercise anyway, if you know what I mean," Michael winked. "Anyway, you'd better go, if she bumps into you later on you'll probably get worse than that punch."


	4. 4: Plan

**4: Plan**

George managed to get some sleep after dozing off during an episode of some home improvement programme, but he knew he was still going to be exhausted all the way through the exercise. The team gathered again in Katie's room, and this time George had made sure he wasn't late. Her room was decorated with pictures of male film stars and athletes, which made George and Ralph laugh until they caught a look from Katie. George was more impressed by the shelf covered in trophies, but he didn't get time to examine them more closely.

"Okay, so I've got a map of the compound," Katie said, spreading it out in front of them. "I've asked around to see if anyone knows any more information about the exercise, like whether there will be equipment drops, but nobody seems to know so we'll assume there are." She paused for a moment. "If anyone has any questions or something, let me know. I really don't want to lose, because that usually means getting shot up a lot, so if you think of something, tell me.

"I've worked out who most of the other teams are and they're mostly older than you lot, so we're at a disadvantage. They'll be able to stay awake better and will have more endurance, so we'll really struggle as it goes on."

"How do we overcome that?" Letty asked. "I mean, we can't win the exercise quickly or anything, so we'll have to last the whole twelve hours."

Katie shrugged. "It'll depend how we get on, but I suggest that since the instructors have put us at a deliberate disadvantage, we should bend the rules a little."

"Huh?" Kimberley asked. George had only met Kimberley a few times, but she was insanely clever and she was in classes with mostly navy- and black-shirts. He also got the impression that she liked to play by the rules.

"We're not going to actually break any rules, since there are cameras all over the compound and if you get caught, you get a huge punishment," Katie explained, "but not everything is actually against the rules. Firstly, if you get a clear shot, always shoot your opponent in the head. Those helmets protect you from most damage, but the visors are nearly impossible to clean without finding some standing water somewhere and if yours gets cracked, you're basically out of the game."

"But won't we get in trouble, since it's dangerous?" Kimberley asked, sounding anxious.

"Just claim you meant to aim for the chest but missed," Katie replied. "They can't really prove you did it deliberately."

George wasn't convinced but it was plain that they had to do something if they wanted to stay in the exercise, so he said nothing.

"What about our flag?" Letty asked. "Someone has to carry it, but if they get caught, we'll lose it."

"I'll have the flag," Katie said. "Those trophies over there are all for athletics, so if it comes to it, I'll drop everything save the flag and run away. There's nobody who'll catch up."

"But if you leave us, we'll get massacred," Ralph complained.

Katie nodded. "The aim of the game is to gather flags, so a defensive strategy won't work. If you get taken prisoner or something, just escape when you get the chance and try to find weapons somewhere. It's better that four of us get caught and the flag escapes than someone gets our flag"

"Yeah, plus, if one team has nearly all the flags at the end, we can ambush them and try to get them all in one go," George suggested.

"Exactly," Katie agreed. "Now, my general plan was for us to split into two sub-teams. I'll pair up with one of you grey-shirts, and Letty, you go with the others. My team will just try and avoid trouble and maybe take any opportunities we can to grab a flag, while the other team and hunt for flags. By being mobile, you avoid being pinned down, and we'll probably find plenty of nice material lying around.

"If we collect up the best equipment and conserve our energy and ammo, we can work out who has all the flags in the morning and storm the place, hopefully shooting everyone up and grabbing the flags just before the end. There's no way we can defend the flags for more than an hour at best, so if we're gonna win, it's like this."

Kimberley put up her hand like she was in a lesson, and when George laughed, she turned red. "Um, about the cameras… I thought the compound was really big?"

Katie nodded. "It takes quite a while to walk from one side to the other, yeah."

"Well if there are cameras covering everywhere, more or less, then they've all got to be connected. It might be possible to find a relay point and hack into them."

George grinned. "Yeah, switch them off then we can kill the other teams without getting into trouble."

Everyone else gave him a look, and he felt like an idiot.

"Or," Kimberley said, "we could watch the feeds to see where the other teams are."

Katie nodded. "Only problem is, you need sophisticated equipment to do that."

"I can do it with my laptop or something," Kimberley suggested.

"They won't let you take it in," Katie told her.

"Sneak it in," George said. "If it's small and light, it should be possible to hide it somewhere."

Katie looked at him. "Well, George has volunteered to sneak it in. Tuck it into the waistband at the back of your trousers and try not to attract attention."

"Wait, I didn't say I wanted to do it," George started, but nobody was listening.

"Do you think you can get into the camera system with it?" Katie asked Kimberley.

"I can try, but I will probably only be able to look at local cameras. The whole network will be monitored somewhere outside the compound."

"Good enough for me. We'll try it, and if it doesn't work, nothing lost," Katie said. "Now, I don't know where we'll be dropped, so it's pointless picking somewhere to head for. Last time I did an exercise, it was a defensive thing with eggs and my team leader made us hole up in a corner somewhere for the entire thing. We won by a mile, but it was bloody boring. Instead of that, I suggest we stick close to the edges of the compound and only go inwards to find equipment. Ammo always gets rare by the end, so don't waste it and carry as much as you can, even though it weighs a ton."

Katie had been to the compound before, so she spent the rest of the time pointing out key areas to avoid or good places to hide, mostly based on what her team leader had planned from the last time. There were some horror stories about the simulated ammunition, and by the time they left to go to the front gate to get picked up, George was worrying if he'd be able to handle it. They made a quick detour to Kimberley's room to pick up her netbook.

"Lift up your shirt, George," Katie demanded, producing a roll of parcel tape from her pocket.

"What happens if I get caught?" George asked, turning away from her and lifting up his shirt.

"Just act dumb. The worst they can do is disqualify us, which means a punishment, but we'd get out of the exercise," Katie said, making him yelp when she yanked on the waistband of his trousers. Letty wrapped the parcel tape around him, securing the netbook, then Katie tucked it into the back of the trousers.

"Alright, now just remember not to sit on it or anything," Katie reminded him, pulling his shirt down over it.

Letty shook her head. "You can still see it."

"Strap it to his front?" Katie suggested, lifting up his shirt again and tearing off the tape painfully.

They readjusted the netbook, this time embarrassing him by tucking it into the front of his boxer shorts.

"Much better," Letty said. "It's invisible unless you lean backwards."

"Only problem is, now I don't really want to touch it," Kimberley complained.

"Feeling okay?" Katie asked Kimberley when they arrived at the front gate with five minutes to spare.

Kimberley shrugged. "I've done basic so I should be fine."

"It's much easier than basic," Katie grinned. "Best thing to do is to get stuck in when you can, it's the anticipation that's worse than actually doing it."

Michael's team was waiting not too far away and George was surprised to see Beatrice with them.

"Looking forward to it?" he asked Michael, who was looking sweatier than usual.

"Just hand over your flag now and save yourself the trouble," Beatrice said, interrupting. "We're gonna absolutely thrash you."

Michael laughed. "She said it."

George shook his head. "We've got a couple of tricks in store," he said, not mentioning the lightweight netbook which was currently taped to him.

"I'll look forward to seeing them," Michael grinned. "Anyway, we're probably leaving in a minute so you'd better go back to your team."

"Good luck," George said before turning back to Katie and the others.

"You'll need it more than us," Beatrice countered, so George flipped her off.

They were driven to the compound in one of the larger minibuses that lived on campus and sat arranged by their team. George's team was blue and they were set to be dropped off second, while Michael's team was green and they were dropped off last.

"We'll probably be dropped off in each corner," Katie said, judging the time it had been since the first team was dropped off. "The game is supposed to be about aggression, so it would be pointless if one team had all the flags after an hour and just hid somewhere. I would expect it to be a while before we see anyone."

Their drop-off point was at the edge of the compound, where it curved around in a circular shape. There was no really good corners, but having half of the approaches blocked off was a good start. However, when they zipped up their protective suits and checked everything was working, looking at each other through clear plastic visors, their equipment bag only contained handguns instead of any rifles.

"If the other teams have been given rifles, we're in trouble," Ralph said, picking one up.

"I expect it'll all be handguns," Katie said. "The ammo will be spread around and if there are lots of different guns, most of the ammo will be useless."

"Looks like they're semi-automatics," George said, tempted to fire a test shot.

"There might be better stuff hidden in the buildings," Katie said. "We're exposed here so let's get inside."

She led them towards a tall building which looked as if it had telephone wires running into it, situated in a corner.

"Time to test your plan," Katie said to Kimberley. "I bet those wires are for the cameras."

"Hope so," the youngest team member said as Letty grabbed George and, after unzipping his protective suit, ripped the tape off, leaving another set of red marks on his skin.

"I'm gonna have burns or something," George complained as they climbed through glassless windows into the lower floor of the building.

"Okay, let's pause for a second," Katie said. "We've probably got less than ten minutes here before someone will turn up looking for us. Letty, take Ralph and George and go into every building which you can get to easily and pick up any equipment, especially guns more powerful and accurate than these. If you spot anyone coming towards us, try to get at least one shot off so we'll hear you."

George grabbed his gun and headed off, heading towards a low building next door. There was nothing inside it, and as he headed out again there were a few gunshots, which made him duck, but they were too far away to be aimed at him. He realised he was sweating and his heart was racing, which wasn't a good sign when he still had twelve hours to endure.


	5. 5: Exercise

**5: Exercise**

George didn't manage to find any equipment but Ralph hit a goldmine; two boxes of extra ammunition and a rifle, while Letty had managed to find a set of two-way radios. George helped him carry it all back to the building where Katie and Kimberley were.

"Excellent," Katie said, examining the rifle. "It'll be nice to have something a bit more accurate."

"There's plenty of ammunition for it," Ralph said, unhooking his pack from his back and opening it.

Their attention was caught by a squeal of triumph coming from Kimberley, who was settled in the corner of the room with her netbook.

"The cameras are all interconnected over a wireless system. Obviously the security on it is rock-solid, but CHERUB's technology can crack it," she explained. "Given about ten minutes I will probably be able to monitor every camera in the compound."

George broke into a huge smile. "That's gonna give us a massive advantage."

Katie thought quickly. "Alright, well this is obviously too valuable to lose, so new plan. Who here is the best shot with a rifle?"

There was a period of silence while everyone waited for someone else to speak. Eventually Kimberley spoke up.

"I scored seventy-six percent on my accuracy rating during basic?" she ventured.

"Oh yeah, I'd forgotten all about that," Letty gasped. "I think I got eighty."

"I'm pretty sure I got ninety-something," George started, but Letty grinned at him.

"Nope, you got sixty-two, I can remember you whining about it all the next day," Letty replied. "You're definitely the worst shot here."

"Ralph?" Katie asked.

"I got ninety-two," he replied, looking a little embarrassed, although it was hard to tell with the helmet covering his face.

"Ninety-two is good enough for me," Katie said, handing him the rifle. "Kimberley, you take the netbook to the top of this building. It's about as well-protected as anywhere and it's not very conspicuous. We've got radios now, so you use that to let us know where the opposing teams are. Ralph, you go up to the roof or find a good window to shoot out of. You're going to cover the building in case it's attacked, but only in an emergency. I'd rather you two sit out the game quietly if possible."

Ralph looked a little put-out that he was going to miss the action, but he picked up the rifle and nodded.

"Finally, Letty, George, you two are coming with me. We'll take most of the ammo and stuff, and we're gonna go and try to find better equipment lying around. Kimberley, you'll keep us away from other teams, and come the morning, we'll use the cameras to home in on whoever has the most flags and steal them."

Everyone seemed okay with the plan, so once they'd all fitted and checked their radios were working, the three of them headed out of the building, staying low in case anyone was watching them.

"We'll ignore the nearby buildings for now and try to find stuff further away, which should deflect suspicion about where the other two are," Katie explained as they half-ran, half-crawled through an overgrown alleyway. "Someone might come to explore our drop point, but they'll assume we've had the best of the equipment and aren't likely to poke around too much."

It was still the summer, so the evenings were quite long and it took a while for the sun to head for the horizon. They didn't have night-vision scopes or anything, although their scavenging had come across plenty of extra ammunition for the handguns and some other mostly useless gadgets, like silencers for the guns and smoke grenades.

"Kimberley, any sign of the other teams?" Katie asked in a low voice as they scanned the area from the upper window of a building, making the most of the last half an hour of light.

"Not near you," Kimberley replied, her voice distorted slightly by the radio. "I've double-checked the cameras against a digital map of the area and identified a few blind spots, so I'll keep you clear of them in case anyone's hiding out."

"Good work," Katie said. "Let us know if anything's coming."

They headed out onto a broad avenue, keeping to the edges and ducking behind parked cars when they could. The metalwork of the cars was buckled from the impact of endless paintballs and simulated ammunition, but all of the engines were gone and most of the interiors were torn up, so there was no chance of getting them to move.

They were progressing towards the end of the avenue, where there were a row of buildings that looked like shops, when Kimberley interrupted their thoughts.

"Yellow team just ahead of you in a building with a load of pink paint on it, looks like two of them. Sorry I didn't tell you before, they were in a blind spot," Kimberley said, her tone tense.

"Just stick to the details," Katie reminded her, tightening her grip on the gun. "Any weapons?"

"Only handguns that I can see."

Katie turned to George and Letty. "Thoughts? I say we attack, since we outnumber them."

"Me too," George said, and Letty just nodded.

"Kimberley, anyone else in the area?"

"Nobody on the cameras, although I can't check the blind spot. The other three members of the yellow team are about five minutes away."

"No rescue party," Katie said, motioning for George and Letty to follow her. The building was just around the corner, and in the half-light George could make out a couple of shapes moving around inside.

"George, cover the windows. Letty, in through the door. I'll cover the back. Shoot for the chest or head, and if they surrender, make sure they can't use their weapons again. Count to five then go," Katie said quickly, before ducking down and sprinting across the road, disappearing behind the buildings opposite. George counted to five under his breath before following suit, waiting under the window for a moment before popping up and firing two quick shots into the figures inside. He head a satisfying groan of pain and a wild shot aimed in his direction, but he ducked down before they could get more accurate. He heard Letty fire and jumped up again, this time taking a better-aimed shot and hitting one of the figures in the back. Letty fired but seemed to miss, and since she was an easier target than George, the two figures started blasting away at her. George heard her grunt when a couple of rounds hit her, but it wasn't light enough to see what was going on. He tried another pair of accurate shots, but the yellow team knew where he was and were taking cover behind some metal tables. George headed into the entrance and almost ran straight into Letty, who was waiting behind the door frame, clutching her side.

George didn't waste time talking, but the moment he got close to the doorway, two shots thudded into the wall next to him and he decided he wasn't going to get anywhere. Before he could make up his mind what to do, there was another outbreak of fire from the back of the building. He made the same decision as Letty and headed out, assuming Katie was involved.

Their team leader was crouching behind a parked car, wincing every time a simulated round hit the metalwork. George and joined her, keeping low, while she covered the back of the building where the two yellow team members were pinned down.

"George, throw a smoke grenade behind us and then we'll run for it," Katie said urgently. "We'll never get out of here with the flag otherwise. How they hell did they get here so fast?"

George pulled out the pin of a grenade and flung it over the car, avoiding the hail of fire that came in reply. The moment it burst, the three of them jumped up and sprinted away, heading towards the centre of the compound.

"... you're in the blind spot," Kimberley said urgently, her voice drowned out by shots. "I can't see you."

"We're heading roughly east," Katie replied, slowing down and keeping low as they cut between two buildings.

"I'll let you know when I can see something. Two people are heading your way, but the others are moving away," Kimberley informed them.

"Roger," Katie said, poking her head around the corner and taking a look. It was too dark to make anything out and the compound wasn't lit. George couldn't see more than twenty yards ahead of him, and he realised that being out in the open was just begging to be shot at.

"We've gotta move," he said, getting anxious.

Katie nodded. "Follow me."

No sooner had she taken a few steps back onto the main road when shots began hitting the road just in front of them. Scared, George just sprinted as fast as he could away, vaguely following Katie. He was hit by a couple of ricochets which hardly hurt, but one lucky shot smacked him in the arm and sent a sharp pain through his shoulder. He kept his balance, but two more shots thudded into Katie and she tripped, skidding across the road. George turned and returned some blind shots, hoping to deter whoever was following them, but more accurate fire followed and he took a shot in the chest, knocking him backwards. Letty grabbed his arm and dragged him into a nearby building.

"God's sake, those rounds hurt so much," George complained, massaging his arm and trying to ignore the pain in his ribs.

"I got two at close range earlier," Letty said, pointing to her side, but George could hardly see in the dark. "Anyway, we've gotta rescue Katie."

George nodded, reloading his gun but keeping the old clip because it had a few rounds left. "But how?"

Letty was by the window, squinting out. "I'm pretty sure they've got hold of her, which means they'll take our flag. Best option is to follow them."

"How are we meant to follow them in this darkness?" George asked, wishing he was at home in bed.

"Kimberley, can you find them?" Letty asked over the radio, keeping her voice low.

"Yeah. They're heading south from your position. They've got Katie and they've disarmed her, but I assume they're waiting to get to a safe location before searching for the flag," Kimberley told them.

"Can you guide us to them? We need to get her back."

"Okay. Go out of the front of your building and take two lefts. There's no-one else around so you can just run. Then, second right."

"Thanks," Letty said, stepping out of the building and following Kimberley's directions with George right behind her.

The rules said that you weren't allowed to shoot at point-blank range, so Katie was struggling and making life difficult for her captors. Kimberley kept guiding them in, but she let out a gasp suddenly, making George jump.

"They've pulled her into a four-storey building on the left, but one of them gave her a couple of punches in the leg with the grip of his gun," Kimberley said carefully. "I don't think she can walk now, so they're carrying her between the two of them."

"Perfect," Letty said, breaking into a run. They found the right door and followed Kimberley's instructions, moving silently.

"George, you storm in. I'll cover you," Letty said, giving him a push before he could respond. He rolled into the room and began shooting at the vague shapes outlined against the windows, not really scoring any hits but spreading plenty of confusion. Letty was a better shot and once she was in the room, their two attackers each got four hits in the chest. They crashed to the floor and George rushed one of them, kicking them somewhere before kneeling on their chest and firing into the ground next to their head.

"Drop the gun, lose the pack," he barked, trying not to lose concentration as Letty tussled with the other. He grabbed the gun he was handed and dropped the clip out of it, then grabbed the pack and threw it into the corner of the room. Letty had won the battle, but she had smacked her opponent's head onto the concrete wall and he didn't seem to be moving.

George couldn't do much except keep his gun pressed against the person lying underneath him, but Letty grabbed something and handed it to him.

"On your helmet," she said, and George worked out that it was an attachment for the visor. Once fitted, he flicked the switch and blinked as everything lit up in blue and red.

"Infrared, excellent," he grinned, finally able to see what he was doing.

"Careful, it's only really useful for seeing people, not solid objects like walls," Letty warned, but George had been at the same lecture during basic training. He rifled through the pack he'd been given, pocketing all of the ammunition he found, but he was disappointed not to get a flag.

"No flag in here either," Letty said, handing George a spare handgun. "Let's get Katie and go."

George had almost forgotten about Katie, who was sat up against a wall. Letty returned her gun and she struggled to her feet, keeping her weight off her right leg. She grabbed the only one of her captors who was still conscious by the neck and slammed his helmet against the floor.

"Say something," she snarled nastily, squeezing his neck more tightly.

"Uh, I…"

"Ah, it was you who hit me," Katie said, getting hold of the collar of his suit and dragging him over to the door. "Kimberley, where's the nearest blind spot?"

There were a couple of seconds' pause before she replied. "Behind the building you're in, about one hundred yards down the street, should be an alleyway or something."

"Let's go, I've got an appointment with this guy."

George and Letty kept look-out on either end of the alleyway, each now equipped with infrared vision they'd looted. A minute of playing with it allowed George to find a setting which seemed to blend infrared and his actual vision, meaning that everything was pretty much black except for a limited number of red areas. It was better than his normal vision, though.

He tried not to listen to what was going on behind him.

"Hit me in the leg, huh? I hope you know you messed with the wrong girl," Katie said sweetly, an edge in her voice that made George uncomfortable. There were two loud bangs and then a helmet rolled down the alley towards George. He ignored it, as well as the moans of pain that started behind him. He was about to turn around and say something when Katie stepped back and fired a full clip of twelve rounds into their helpless opponent, followed by two revenge smacks with the gun.

"Better move quickly," Katie said, picking up the spare helmet and throwing it through an open doorway. "I wanna be out of here as soon as possible."

Letty followed them and George thought he could hear her sobbing a bit, but he wasn't sure whether it was that or just her breathing heavily. He didn't want to think about the state of the guy in the alley, especially if it was someone he knew.

"I don't know about you two, but I'd be happy enough to just hide out somewhere until it gets light," Katie said, still limping on her damaged leg, "unless you want to try and use that infrared."

"No, it's not that useful," Letty replied, sounding surprisingly calm. She used her free hand to support Katie's weak side. "I'd rather go on the offensive during the day."

"Kimberley? Can you find us a fairly defendable building somewhere?" Katie asked, grunting as her foot caught the edge of the kerb and almost made her trip.

"No problem… you're nearly at the edge of the compound here, so carry on straight ahead and I'll see what I can find."


	6. 6: Attack

**6: Attack**

George had no idea what time it was or how long it was until it got light, but he spent the spare time sorting through all the equipment they had while Katie tried to massage some feeling into her leg and Letty kept look-out.

"Apparently it'll start getting light at about four in the morning," Katie told him, dividing the ammunition into three piles. "The moment we can see where we're going, we'll get Kimberley to find the remaining flags and storm the place. Worst case, we lose our flag, never mind, but we'll lose for certain if we just hide," she explained. "Hopefully we'll grab a couple of flags and pull off a late win."

"I suppose having access to the cameras is our secret weapon," George replied. "Even if they move to a new location or even if they're moving around, we should be able to home in."

"Exactly. It's not much of an advantage, but it's better than nothing, and we're more likely to get credit for trying."

When they'd been moving around in the dark, the adrenaline had kept George going, but now he was just sat still with nothing but his thoughts, he could feel himself slowly falling asleep. He wanted to tell Katie, but she was having a conversation with Kimberley, so he took his radio earpiece out and lay on the concrete floor, using his pack as a pillow. It didn't take long to fall asleep, but his sleep was constantly interrupted by weird dreams and the sound of gunfire.

"Come on sleepy, we're going in a minute," Letty said, nudging him awake. "It's just getting light, so we've got about four hours to go."

George was groggy but he felt a bit better, so he pulled his pack onto his back and followed Letty down the stairs, glad that when he looked outside he could make out vague outlines instead of complete darkness like before. The only downside was that it had started raining during the night.

"Kimberley's been keeping track of all the movement last night and the situation seems to be that the red team have two flags, the yellow team have one and the green team have none," Katie said as they jogged gently along a street laid out like a suburban area with curves and widely spaced houses, the pain pelting down onto their padded suits. "We'll track down the red team and since we know exactly who's carrying the flags, focus on getting hold of them."

"What's the plan after that?" George asked, occasionally peering through the window of a house to see if there was any equipment.

"Head back to where Kimberley and Ralph are and then hold on as long as possible," Katie shrugged. "The good news is that the other teams are unlikely to know where each flag is, so the red team will want to get one more to secure victory. Hopefully we can pick off a couple of members before heading for wherever they're hiding."

With the light slowly returning, there was more gunfire sounding around the compound, which suggested that the teams were finding each other again. A fierce exchange somewhere in the west worried Katie, since it was over where Kimberley was, but Kimberley checked in and said it was just the yellow and green teams scrapping over the single flag they had.

"Okay, you're about one hundred yards away from the building. There's someone posted on the ground floor, then two on the top floor," Kimberley said as they approached the red team's base. "There's only a single staircase leading to the top floor, so it might not be possible to rush it."

Katie thought for a moment. "Well, the best thing to do is, Letty, climb up to the top floor of the building opposite and take the rest of the smoke grenades. If you can, get a smoke grenade through the window and then just fire at them, doesn't really matter if you hit anything. George and I will overwhelm the one downstairs then try and get upstairs in time to get hold of both flags."

"Isn't it odd that they kept their flags together? It's safer to spread them out," Letty said, eyeing up the building opposite to see if it was possible to throw a grenade from one to the other.

"Maybe they went for safety in numbers, or they've got an escape plan. Either way, we don't have much choice," Katie said. "We'll hide down here and we'll make our move as soon as you signal us."

Letty went in through the back door of the building while George and Katie crept around the side, keeping hidden behind a low wall. George checked his gun was fully loaded for the ninetieth time, then stared up at the grey sky, letting the rain hit his visor.

George had no idea what the signal was going to be, but something set Katie off and she began sprinting towards the building. George followed, but even with an injured leg, Katie covered the ground in less than half the time it took George. He could see how she'd won her trophies.

When he arrived, Katie had shot up the person on the ground floor, but was grabbing her shoulder. George made sure their opponent's gun was useless before heading for the stairs.

"You go first, in case you get hit, then I can probably climb over you," Katie said, stepping aside as he climbed the flight. "When you get to the top, just fire blindly. I'll come in behind you and do the accurate stuff."

George nodded and sprinted up the last flight, popping up into a haze of smoke, courtesy of Letty. Her shots had alerted the red team to an attack, but they couldn't see anything. George did his best to hit anything that moved and clear way for Katie, but as he turned to try and get closer to a window, a shot smacked into his visor, knocking him off his feet and totally obscuring his vision. He was seeing stars and couldn't even locate where his gun had gone, let alone what else was going on. The next thing he knew, Katie was shaking his shoulder and twisting off the buckled plastic visor.

"You feeling alright?" she asked, pushing the plastic straw from his water bottle between his teeth. "Drink something."

He was still dazed but he felt well enough to get to his feet and look around. The room reeked of smoke, but the only thing in it was a red team member looking as dazed as he felt.

"What happened?" he asked, looking around for his gun, which Katie was holding.

"Letty was right, there was an escape plan. There's a balcony on the far side and a ladder to the roof. I managed to stop one of them, but her pack and her friend disappeared and by the time I worked it out, they were long gone with both flags," Katie explained to him, making sure he drank more water. "If it makes you feel better, you're not the only one who got hit in the face."

George spotted the red team girl's visor lying on the floor, looking as wrecked as his own. "Well, it seemed like an accident when I got hit."

"Yeah, I don't know who hit her either," Katie said. "Either me or Letty. Her friend had the presence of mind to grab her pack once she went down.

"Anyway, Letty and I had better get going. Since your visor's history, you're out of the game, so just sit tight up here and if anyone comes in, surrender straight away. I've taken everything from your pack, and keep drinking," Katie said, patting him on the shoulder. "See you later."

George felt a bit abandoned as the black-shirt disappeared down the stairs, but it was for the best. Once he'd regained his senses enough to move, he went over to help the red team girl, who rewarded him by being sick all over the floor.

"Here, drink something," he said, giving her the plastic straw from his own pack. "You'll feel better."

While she drank, he unpeeled his protective suit and stepped out of it. It was strictly against the rules to do it, but he was sweltering inside it and since he was defenceless anyway, it hardly made a difference. When he searched his pack, he discovered that Katie had left him her own water bottle, which he used now that the other girl had his.

"How many flags does your team have?" she asked, blinking hard and trying not to move her head.

"Just one," George shrugged. "We've not really been that successful."

"We had two," she replied, "but I don't know if we still do."

"I'm George, by the way," George said, sitting next to her and avoiding the puddle of sick.

"Poppy. I'm sorry if it was me who hit you, by the way."

"It's okay, it could have been me who hit you," George grinned. "Bit of an accident with all of the smoke."

"Should have seen my face when the smoke grenade landed in here," Poppy said, taking a long drink. "Practically jumped out of my skin."

"Do you know how long we've got left?" George asked, taking the opportunity to inspect some of his worse bruising. "I just want to go to sleep now."

Poppy rolled up her padded sleeve and looked at a digital watch. "About an hour. I think you attacked us just after five, so we've been out for two hours or so."

"The simulated ammunition is nasty," George shrugged. "I don't wanna repeat this experience."

"Me neither."

When it became obvious that nobody was coming back for them, George contacted Kimberley for a situation report.

"Katie and Letty had a shootout with some green team people, but they seem to be low on ammunition now so they're searching for more. The green team managed to get their flag back from the yellow team, but the reds are still winning."

George passed this on to Poppy who smiled a bit, but still looked ill. He explained about the radios and the cameras and she seemed impressed.

"I wish we'd thought of that. I had to sit here all night, terrified of being attacked," she said. "But knowing Kimberley, just having her on your team is a huge advantage."

"You know Kimberley?" George asked.

"Yeah, I did basic training with her," Poppy replied. "She's so smart. Did you know she already does A-Level physics?"

"I knew she was smart, but that's just scary," George grinned. "I'm going to ask to be on her team next time, too."

When the siren went to signal the end of the game, the rain still hadn't let up, so they both got soaked on their way to the pick-up point.

"I'm gonna sleep for a whole day after this," Poppy said, carrying her ruined helmet. "I'm _so_ tired."

"I could go for a hot shower first," George replied, before waving goodbye as they split back into their teams.

"How're you feeling?" Katie asked when he arrived, handing him a bottle of water.

"Better," George said, downing half of the bottle. "My head and neck ache still, but the wooziness wore off."

"That's good. When you get back, go to the nurse and get checked for a concussion," Katie said, giving him an encouraging smile.

"How'd the end of the game go?" George asked Kimberley.

She smiled and looked excited. "Some yellow team members attacked us right at the end, but Ralph managed to fight them off for long enough. Otherwise, the red team won in the end, but we didn't lose our flag all the way through."

George nodded. "I'm just glad it's over, actually."

Kazakov, looking fresh from a night's sleep, stood next to the bus, cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled until everyone was paying attention.

"Good work everyone. As some of you already know, the red team won, followed by a tie for second between blue and green, with the yellows taking last place. For those members of the yellow team who have not suffered enough, you'll be enjoying a run back to campus with me, while everyone else can get into the minibus."

George was relieved they'd avoided the run, but when they were all back in the minibus, he realised there were only three yellow team members left outside to do the run.

"Apparently the other two got injured somehow," Michael said, taking a seat next to George. "That ammunition is serious stuff, so I'm not surprised. One of ours copped a hit in the back of the neck and got carted off after an hour or so."

George felt guilty about the yellow team but he didn't say anything all the way back to campus. He worried whether he was going to get into trouble, and when the minibus arrived back on campus, a welcoming committee of Zara, a grey-haired man George didn't know and Instructor Pike was waiting. Before anyone could get off, Zara got on and pointed at Katie.

"Come with us please," she said in a tone so icy that everyone on the bus sat exactly still and didn't dare to breathe. Katie got up and followed Zara off the bus, where she was escorted straight to the main building with the entire bus watching.


	7. 7: Serious

**7: Serious**

It didn't take long for the campus gossip machine to start spreading the news like wildfire. George slept through the middle of the day after a precautionary trip to the medical department, which told him he had a mild concussion and whiplash. Poppy's concussion was more severe so they kept her in, but George was allowed to go back to his room on the condition he didn't go to sleep until after eight pm. His annoyance at not being able to sleep was offset by the fact that he had a note to get him out of lessons for two days. By the time he was eating dinner in the evening, everyone knew that Katie had beaten up someone from the yellow team, and her punishment ranged from a prison term to twenty thousand laps depending on who you spoke to. Nobody had much sympathy for her, including George, but she didn't come to the cafeteria for anything to eat and nobody saw her that evening so the rumours continued to circulate.

The following morning he found himself being woken by someone knocking gently on the door, which was a bad sign. His friends would just have burst in or pounded on the door as loud as possible.

"It's open," he said, trying to see what time it was and accidentally knocking his alarm clock onto the floor.

His handler Rose pushed open the door and peered inside. "Feeling okay, George?"

George nodded and sat up in bed, scratching under his t-shirt. "Neck's stiff and my head still aches slightly, but I'll live."

"Well, don't move your head too much for a couple of days," she said with a gentle tone George didn't think he'd ever heard before. "Anyway, I've actually come to ask for a favour."

"Ask away," George said, moving his pillow so he wasn't sitting on it. "I'm not going anywhere."

Rose wrinkled her nose and looked at the pile of dirty washing. "George, is that your swimming kit from this past week?"

George grinned. "Haven't quite got round to washing it, miss."

Rose made a face and opened the windows to let some air in. "Sometimes you boys really disgust me." She made sure the door was closed before sitting at the foot of his bed. "Now, I'm afraid I've got to ask you about what happened on the training exercise."

George opened his mouth but she held up a hand to silence him. "I was a Cherub for eight years, I know how it works and I'm not going to insult you by asking you to grass on anyone. However, obviously this is an extremely serious matter. You mustn't tell anyone this, but it looks as if Katie will be thrown out of CHERUB. There was an emergency meeting with the chairwoman, a member of the ethics committee and the head instructor, although their decision is yet to be finalised. She certainly won't be going on a mission again."

"But miss, she-"

Rose shook her head. "The agent she attacked had two broken legs and multiple internal injuries as a result of being shot point-blank no fewer than twelve times. Do that on the street and you'll be looking at a lengthy stretch behind bars. She gets no sympathy from me, and she shouldn't from you. She should have known better."

George just nodded.

"Now, I need to ask you if there's anything you want to tell me about the incident. Off the record, if you choose to say nothing, then I'm okay with it, but if there's anything you think the authorities should know, say it now."

There was nothing he could say without sounding like a grass, so George kept quiet and fiddled with the corner of his duvet.

"The rules of the exercise have been reviewed so we don't expect a repeat performance of this, you'll be pleased to know."

"Will anyone else be punished?" George asked, anxious to know if his immediate future contained multiple laps of the athletics track.

Rose smiled. "Don't worry, you won't be. We don't know exactly what happened, but Katie told us that neither you nor anyone else on the team were involved, so we're satisfied. However, as part of the investigation, we discovered an unauthorised usage of the compound cameras, so I understand that Kimberley will be cleaning the toilets in the dojo for quite some time. Here's a tip from an ex-Cherub; don't try and outsmart the instructors."

George laughed. "I'll remember that one."

"That's everything I came for. I'm amazed, honestly, that you were involved in this and somehow got away without me having to punish you," Rose said, getting up and heading for the door. "Oh, one more thing."

"Hmm?" George asked, already thinking about breakfast.

"Here," she said, putting a yellow access card to the mission preparation building down on his desk. "Don't forget about it this time."

George grinned. "For real?"

"Yes, for real. I don't think the mission is confirmed just yet, but you're on it if it goes ahead and you want to do it."

The meeting about the mission was scheduled for the middle of the next week, which gave George time to rest his neck and lord it over everyone else that he had been let off lessons. The official announcement was that Katie had been permanently suspended from missions and would be leaving Cherub as soon as she could get a transfer to a school somewhere outside CHERUB. She spent all of her time either shut in her room or going to meetings so George didn't see her, but everyone had adopted a policy of ignoring her anyway, so George was actually glad he didn't have to see her. He felt sorry for her, because even though she was scary, she had been nice to him.

Letty and Ralph were jealous of him getting selected for a mission, but Letty took the opportunity to remind him about how her navy shirt meant she outranked him anyway. He really wished he could have rubbed it in Rex's face a bit more, but he was still away on his missions and it didn't feel the same by e-mail.

When the morning of the meeting finally came, George could already feel the pre-mission nerves starting. Lots of Cherubs said that the second proper mission was always a tough one, and while this one could just be a security check, he was sure that it was something meatier.

George knew about most of the mission controllers at CHERUB, or at least he'd heard stories about them, but when he arrived at the right office he didn't recognise the name on the door. He knocked and waited for a couple of seconds before someone opened the door.

"Ah, hello, you must be George. Come in, my name's Pete Graham," the man said in a strong Australian accent, pointing to the chair opposite the desk and offering a hand for a shake,

"Hi," George said, shaking his hand and stepping over to sit in the chair.

Pete, a sandy-haired man on the verge of middle-age, sat opposite him, behind the kind of desk that looked as if it had come from Ikea and hadn't been put together properly. Everything in the room was in boxes, including a tiny potted plant, with the exception of a pile of files that were sitting on the desk and looked like they'd been used recently.

"So, George, I'm sure you know why you're here," Pete said, sifting through the files. "Do you know who I am?"

George shook his head. "From the look of it, you're either just arriving or just leaving, though."

Pete grinned. "Good guess. Just arrived. Spent the last week acclimatising and sightseeing, and now I'm here for my new job."

"Oh, right," George replied. "And you're already running a mission?"

"Well, that's partly why I'm here. I used to work for the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, or ASIS for short. Over in Australia we don't have our own version of CHERUB, so we often use you guys. Eventually someone at the top decided we should have a permanent liaison, so that's why I'm sat here right now in this tiny little office," Pete laughed. "They chose me because I was working on the plan for a mission using CHERUB, and that's why you're here."

George nodded, realisation slowly dawning that the mission would probably be in Australia. "Sounds good to me."

"If I'm sounding a bit cryptic so far, it's because I'm actually stalling. One of your mission controllers is supposed to be here in a minute but so far no sign. I don't want to introduce the mission until they're here."

"No problem," George said, stretching out in the chair. "If it means a trip Down Under, I can wait."

Pete laughed again. "I think you and I are gonna get along. Ah, here we are."

The door opened and the bald head of John Jones appeared, followed by a wheeled office chair that he pulled in behind him.

"Sorry about that John, only had the two chairs in here," Pete explained, positioning the chair so it was halfway between himself and George.

John smiled. "Don't worry about it. Before long you'll be sending the Cherubs on errands to fetch chairs like it's nothing." He turned to George. "We meet again young man. You'll be pleased to know that our American friends have been asking after you whenever the topic of CHERUB comes up, but the Aussies have first dibs."

George smiled, feeling a little embarrassed. "That's cool."

Pete cleared his throat. "Now that you're here, John, why don't you let George know what it is you're here for."

John nodded. "Well, George, this mission has been in the works for about six months now, which is probably why you feel like you've been sitting around on campus like a lemon. It's actually an internal matter for the Australians and doesn't really concern us in the UK, but we don't mind lending them a hand every now and again. Basically we'll be asking you to go to a school in Australia, befriend the child of a criminal, find out what you can and hope to crack the case. It's more or less routine, but ASIS are really keen that it goes well."

Pete took over. "The guy you'll be trying to catch is basically the biggest criminal in Melbourne and he's been operating without much harassment from the authorities for for than ten years now. We're keen to get rid of him and this is the perfect time."

"The only problem," John continued, "is that it's really a two person mission. We need an older female agent of British descent who is old enough, or looks old enough, to pass for seventeen or eighteen. Unfortunately, CHERUB does not have very many of those. There was one who was perfect, and has worked with ASIS on two previous missions, but she recently did an excellent job of utterly disgracing herself on a training exercise and, as far as I'm aware, is no longer available for mission work."

George caught on. "Oh, you mean Katie."

John nodded. "She's been pencilled in for this one for months, so it's been a huge blow."

"We really need this mission to be started within the next couple of months, maximum," Pete explained. "Any longer and we're running the risk of not being able to penetrate the organisation effectively."

"This is why we need to talk to you, George," John said. "It was no coincidence that you were put on Katie's team for the exercise; we were hoping to see how well you two would work together and see if you'd get on. However following her behaviour, we've had to disclude her, but there's literally nobody else available. The only other possible girl, Lauren Adams, is currently on another mission and so we can't use her as a fall back."

"Why don't you just unsuspend Katie and give her a different kind of punishment?" George suggested. "I mean, if it's crucial for an important mission."

"Well, we need to know if you'd be okay to go on a mission with her. We think that it could last as long as six months or more, so if you're not happy working with her in an operational capacity, we can't let it go ahead."

"I don't mind working with her," George said quickly. "She was a good team leader and she was always nice enough to me."

John nodded. "Do you think you could trust her under pressure?"

"Yeah. The only time she's a bit of a psychopath is when someone's got her angry."

"Well, what if you got her angry?" John suggested. "There's a possibility that at some point on the mission, you could make her snap and be on the receiving end. Are you okay with that?"

George nodded. "I'll just make sure I stay on her good side."

John exchanged a look with Pete, but he didn't sound totally convinced. "Well, that sounds like as good an endorsement as you're likely to get, and I know ASIS have always rated her number one. I can try and use my influence with Zara, but no guarantees."

"ASIS have already lodged a formal request," Pete shrugged. "If you guys are still set on throwing this girl onto the street, then there's not much we can do."

John sighed. "I'm ninety-nine percent sure she'll do an excellent job, but that one percent is just enough to make me worry. However, CHERUB has been angling towards getting her as a training instructor for ages; she's got exactly the right temperament for it, and we always prefer internal candidates because it saves us having to uproot someone. That might be enough to save her."

"Just tell her she can go on the mission so long as she agrees to be an instructor," George suggested.

"Unfortunately she'd probably turn that down. She's got a talent for athletics, especially sprinting, and if there's one thing Cherub can't offer, it's world-class athletics coaching," John replied. "She's certainly the fastest female agent we've ever had here, if not the fastest person."

"Anyway, thanks John. If you could see what you can do, I'd be much obliged," Pete said, standing up and showing John out. "Just let me know."

Once John had departed, Pete sat back down and slid a file over to George. "Have a look at this and see what you think."


	8. 8: Syndicate

**8: Syndicate**

_**CLASSIFIED**_

_MISSION BRIEFING FOR GEORGE KNIGHT_

_THIS DOCUMENT IS PROTECTED WITH A RADIO_

_FREQUENCY IDENTIFICATION TAG._

_ANY ATTEMPT TO REMOVE IT FROM THE MISSION_

_PREPARATION BUILDING WILL SET OFF AN ALARM._

_DO NOT PHOTOCOPY OR MAKE NOTES._

_Organised Crime in Australia_

_Like all countries, Australia struggles with the problem of organised crime, but problems in Australia are, in some ways, more acute. Geographical proximity to drug-producing areas and other countries with major organised crime problems is one factor, as well as the relative difficulty of policing more than twenty thousand miles of coastline. Problems include drug trafficking, human trafficking, financial crime, extortion, protection rackets and even political corruption. Australian authorities have been working to eradicate these problems since the 1980s, but the balance of power can be precarious and as soon as one group is eliminated, another springs up. _

_Melbourne, the organised crime 'capital' of Australia_

_With more than four million people, Melbourne is consistently ranked among the best cities in the world, but beneath the surface is the highest rate of organised crime in Australia. The Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) and Victoria Police are constantly working to infiltrate and stop these organisations, with the cooperation of local citizens. However, the high living standards in Melbourne can contribute to the problem, with criminals attracted by the wealth and the potential for corruption and financial crime amongst the city's most well-off. A number of attempts have been made to crack down on organised crime in Melbourne, and major reductions have been made since the mid-1980s, but the problem has not gone away._

_Infiltrating Organised Gangs_

_One of the key difficulties of infiltrating the kinds of gangs that operate in Melbourne is their general distrust of new members and the fact that any undercover agent who is exposed is likely to be subject to violent retribution or possibly even death. As such, ASIS have been working to find a way to infiltrate these gangs without subjecting their agents to unwelcome risks. Using informants has been successful in the past, but they can often be unreliable and the majority of members at the core of the gangs are unwilling to take any risks on behalf of the police and ASIS. Getting information about those at the very top of the organisations is the most important thing when it comes to dismantling these gangs._

_The Melbourne Power Vacuum_

_Recently, a series of bitter inter-gang feuds have led to an increase in the number of gangland murders, culminating in the assassination of two major players in Melbourne's drugs trade. ASIS believe that these two men were responsible for running one of Melbourne's major gangs, and since their death, the trade has been available for other gangs to take over. This period of major change is the perfect time to gather information on any gangs trying to move in. It is therefore important that the ASIS mission goes ahead as soon as possible, to take advantage of this. _

_The Syndicate_

_One of the gangs believed to be capitalising on the situation is named the_ Syndicate_. Unlike many conventional organised crime gangs, the Syndicate does not have a street presence and has not been known to engage in territorial feuds, and evidence suggests that until now, it has focused its activities on financial crime. The fact that it appears to be moving into the drugs trade is a development that has taken ASIS by surprise, and it is important to find out why they have done this. However, the lack of a street presence makes it very difficult to infiltrate and the group is notorious for meticulously checking the backgrounds of everyone associated with them, to prevent undercover police officers or journalists from gathering information, and are suspected to be behind a number of brutal murders of former members who have threatened to go to the police. As such, ASIS is anxious that they do not get a grip on Melbourne's drugs trade in any permanent capacity._

_Zachary Kurjak_

_Zachary Kurjak was born in Melbourne in 1974 and appeared to have a relatively normal upbringing in an affluent suburb. Displaying an apparent talent for economics, he studied it at the University of Melbourne and graduated with a high overall score. Subsequent years of his life are unknown, although it appears that he spent some years working for a merchant bank. Whether or not he founded The Syndicate is unclear, but what is certain is that by the mid-2000s, the Syndicate was the go-to place for money laundering, fraud and protection in north-west Melbourne with Zachary at its head. In the years since then, he has consolidated his position and now has estimated assets in excess of AU$50 million (£27 million), and the Syndicate has moved into a number of other illegal trades and has influence throughout the city._

_Riley Kurjak_

_In 1999, Zachary married a local waitress named Maria Fields, and in early 2000 she gave birth to a son, Riley Kurjak. Due to his father's criminal lifestyle, Riley spent his early years in the care of his mother. He was not enrolled in any schools until the age of eight, and then he was considered a misfit. Zachary's solution was to send Riley to a prestigious school in central Melbourne called Melbourne Academy. It claims to be the best fee-paying school in Melbourne, but Riley is a persistent troublemaker and does not fit in. The school cannot expel him due to his father's wealth and influence, but he has been suspended for various periods. It is clear that Riley is not happy with his school or his home life, a fact which ASIS plans to exploit._

_Pete Grahams and ASIS_

_In late 2008, Pete Grahams moved from a post working for the Australian civil service to a desk job at ASIS. His first major assignment was to design an undercover mission to infiltrate the Syndicate. This was finally achieved in early 2011 when the suggestion of using CHERUB was made, and Pete has since moved to CHERUB for a full time Mission Controller role, specialising in ASIS-CHERUB relations. CHERUB approved the idea of a mission in Melbourne, despite the fact that infiltrating the Syndicate has little direct impact for the British government. _

_The Mission and CHERUB's Role_

_Two agents will be sent undercover in Australia. The younger, aged between eleven and thirteen, will attempt to befriend Riley at Melbourne Academy to gain access to his family home, where he lives with his mother and father. The agent can then gather information about his business dealings and associates, with the design of eventually arresting and imprisoning Zachary. The older agent, aged between sixteen and eighteen, will pose as a school-leaver without a job. It is thought that, with some gentle persuasion, they can get into a position in the centre of all the gangs in Melbourne, gathering general information on criminal figures and, if necessary, assisting the Syndicate in order to infiltrate it. It is thought that the Syndicate is unlikely to impose a harsh background check on a young person, especially with a well-fabricated background designed by ASIS and CHERUB. It is well-known that female figures in organised crime are the best information carriers and this agent is likely to be told a great deal of useful information._

_Alice Blythe_

_The key link in the mission is a woman named Alice Blythe. Born in 1980 in Sydney, she studied economics and business at the California Institute of Technology in the US before moving back to Australia. She works for one of Australia's major banks at their Melbourne office, and has a distinguished career. However, in late 2010, an ASIS investigation found her at the heart of a money laundering operation with links to the Syndicate. In July 2011 they had gathered enough evidence and ASIS moved in. To avoid a prison term and the loss of her career, she has agreed to live with two CHERUB agents posing as her recently-deceased sister's children. (In reality, her niece and nephew live with their father in Oxfordshire.) It is thought that this will be sufficient to convince the Syndicate of the agents' legitimacy, since Alice is as rock-solid as they come in the organisation. Should Alice break the terms of the agreement and betray the agents, she will be charged with various financial offences and imprisoned, and this is thought to be sufficient to prevent this from occurring. _

_Goals of the Mission_

_The overall goals of the mission are to gather sufficient evidence to charge Zachary Kurjak with various offences and imprison him, as well as many of his associates, cutting down on organised crime in Melbourne and facilitating the collapse of the Syndicate. As well as this, secondary goals include gathering information about other organised gangs in Melbourne and, if possible, imprisoning any key members of those gangs. _

_THE ETHICS COMMITTEE ACCEPTED THIS MISSION ON A 7-6 VOTE BUT REQUEST THAT AGENTS CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING:_

_(1) This mission has been classified as HIGH RISK. Exposure to dangerous drugs is highly likely, so agents are reminded that knowingly taking any Class A drugs will result in their immediate expulsion from CHERUB. Agents would be operating independently of CHERUB control and reporting directly to ASIS, which may make it difficult for CHERUB to provide support in an emergency situation._

_(2) Alice Blythe will not be informed about the existence of CHERUB and will be under the impression that the agents are merely the children of officials at the British consulate general in Sydney. This means that there is a small but significant chance of the existence of CHERUB being revealed to an external person. Agent must take utmost care not to carelessly reveal any details._

George put the briefing down, unable to keep a smile off his face of the idea of taking on a high risk mission in sunny Australia.

"What do you think?" Pete asked, looking slightly nervous. "This is the first time I've actually spoken to an undercover agent about it."

"Looks good to me," George grinned. "You'd have to ask Katie, though, she's the one with experience."

Pete nodded. "Well, any questions, let me know. I really hope that your lot can get Katie out of her mission suspension or whatever you call it, because looking at her file, she's literally perfect for this. Why was she suspended in the first place? John said something about a training mission."

"Isn't it in her file?" George asked.

"I've only got an old version from about four months ago when I originally requested it. Your files are so top-secret that not even the Australian Prime Minister is allowed to see them, you know."

George smirked. "Well, we are pretty important people. Anyway, Katie snapped when some guy busted up her leg and she broke both his legs and unloaded a gun full of simulated ammunition into him at point-blank range."

"Ah. I suppose she pretty much deserves what she's got then," Pete said, shaking his head. "According to her file, she's always done a fantastic job on missions in Australia."

George shrugged. "No idea what happened to her."

"Anyway, if we can get her free again, the mission will start in September. The seasons are different Down Under, so we'll be going into our summer," Pete said. "Can't wait to get away from all this rain."

"If you don't mind my asking, why are you so set on bringing down Zachary? I mean, sure, he's a bad guy, but the mission really seems to be gunning for him," George said, flicking through again. "He can't be reponsible for the whole show."

Pete laughed. "You got me there. Zachary was in my graduating class at university and he was a complete bastard. I'd love to see him behind bars."

George shook his head. "Isn't it supposed to be about national security?" he grinned.

"Well, there's that too. But mostly I just hate his guts, and the fact that he's a major criminal is a bonus."


	9. 9: Flight

**9: Flight**

The school didn't start until the second week of September so the mission was set to start a week earlier, giving the agents time to get over their jet lag and learn where everything was in the neighbourhood before things really got started. In the last two weeks of August, George did brush-up sessions on gathering information from targets' houses and roleplayed various situations that he might get into with Riley. Katie sometimes joined him, but mostly she was working in the archives; now that she was no longer suspended from missions, she had to work for nine hours a day cataloguing paper files and digitising them, which sounded really boring.

Letty, Ralph and Beatrice were all jealous of George getting a juicy mission in Australia, but Ralph departed on a mission before George's started and Beatrice was confined to campus after an incident at the local bowling alley, so George was glad he was going somewhere and that, by the time he got back, campus would be a bit livelier.

"I don't think you can come to the airport in case someone's watching the flight," George told Letty as he finished his packing. Their flight was that evening and it was just starting to get dark outside. Letty was in his room to help, but she'd spent most of the time finishing the microwaveable pancakes from his fridge and complaining about having nothing to do when he'd gone.

"Makes sense," Letty said, wiping syrup off her lips. "Did they say how long the mission will take?"

George rolled his eyes. "I've told you at least twice, they think it'll take up to six months."

His instructions were to pack summer clothing, but he could fit practically all of the clothes he owned into one suitcase so he'd just packed everything. They had to maintain the idea that he and Katie were moving to live with their aunt in Australia, so they could only take one suitcase each.

"Do you think I could squeeze my PlayStation in somewhere?" George asked, looking at it sadly.

Letty giggled. "You and your PlayStation, you'd think it was your girlfriend."

"It's better than a girlfriend," George replied, giving Letty a shove so she toppled off his bed. "You just don't understand."

"You probably shouldn't. The power supply might be different and it ould get damaged," Letty said, picking herself up off the floor.

"True," George replied, putting the PlayStation away in his wardrobe. "Maybe I'll be able to get one over there."

He didn't have anything else left to pack, so he finished zipping up his suitcase and dragged it over to the door.

"Make sure you email me," Letty said, sounding a little bit sad. "It's gonna be so quiet here without you and Rex, and Jemima's still not back from her mission."

"Rex only has a week or two left," George shrugged. "Before you know it, you'll be wondering why you ever put up with me."

"By the time you're back, we'll both be twelve," Letty grinned. "I'm expecting a birthday present."

"So am I," George said, "and mine's first, so if I don't get one from you, you're not getting one in return."

"Make sure you stay safe," Letty said, leaping over to him and hugging him.

George felt awkward but hugged her back. "I'll do my best."

"I'll walk down with you. It's not as if I'm busy," Letty said, opening the door so George could push his suitcase out. "Don't you have some carry-on luggage?"

George shook his head. "I'm only taking my phone and some headphones, so they'll fit in my pocket. I'll get water and stuff at the airport, since you can't take it through security."

"Okay then, let's go!"

Every time George had seen Katie since the exercise she'd seemed depressed, which has hardly surprising, so he was taken aback when he found her sitting in the car they were taking, grinning at him.

"Took long enough," she said, jumping out and helping him to load the suitcase into the back. "We're leaving this car at the airport since there's some Cherub agent returning tomorrow morning and they'll drive it back."

George nodded. "Sounds good. Can I drive?"

Katie shrugged. "Can you drive?"

George had meant it as a joke, but his eyes went wide at the thought of being allowed to drive. "My last mission was a car mission, so I've passed the CHERUB course and everything."

"Well, I'll drive us off campus, then we'll swap over and you can take drive the rest until we get into London, when I'd better do it. Don't want security cameras at Heathrow seeing you driving," Katie said, climbing back into the driver's seat.

"What time's the flight?" George asked, clipping on his seatbelt.

"Ten o'clock, so we've got plenty of time," Katie said, checking her watch again. "Have you got everything, since we can't go back for it?"

George nodded. "I'm all set."

"Do me a favour and check that we've got all our tickets and stuff, they should be in the brown envelope on the back seats," Katie said, putting the car into gear and pulling away. "There should also be passports in there."

George grabbed the envelope and checked everything was there, before pulling out his passport and flicking through it to find the photo page.

"It's at the back," Katie said. "Have you never had a passport before?"

"Nope. This is the first time I've been overseas except for basic training," George replied, finding the picture and grinning at how bad it looked. The name on the passport was Brian Ashworth, which was his mission cover and the real name of the boy he was pretending to be. He said it out loud a few times, trying to get used to it.

"That reminds me, from now on we should really use the mission cover all the time," Katie said. "Remember to call me Chelsea."

"Okay Chelsea," George said, putting his passport back into the envelope. Weirdly, looking at it made him miss his mum, since it was the same colour as her old passport he'd played with when he was little. "How long's the flight?"

Katie thought for a moment. "I think it's about twenty-eight hours including the stopover in Shanghai. We'll arrive first thing in the morning, so try and get plenty of sleep on the flight to try and beat the jet lag."

George settled into his seat. "Let me know when I can take over driving."

Katie let George drive as far as a supermarket car park in north London, but she took over before they hit the M25. George had kept the speed down so he wouldn't be pulled over by the police and they were running late, so Katie blasted along the motorway to make up for it. Cars registered to CHERUB couldn't get speeding tickets, and it gave George a warm glow of satisfaction every time a camera went past.

Unfortunately, to make their departure from the UK and arrival in Australia look as authentic as possible, they weren't afforded any special privileges at the airport and had to queue up for everything. The man behind the check-in desk gave Katie's bulging suitcase a series of suspicious looks, but it came in under the maximum weight and he let it go. Security took even longer and George was dying for a pee, but they got through eventually and George sprinted for the loos in the departure lounge while Katie bought sweets and drinks from an overpriced shop.

"Don't drink too much until we're on the plane," Katie said as she passed George two giant bags of Skittles and a bag with bottles of water in it. "They serve drinks on the plane and you've gotta make it last until we get to Shanghai."

George compromised and tore into the Skittles while he waited for Katie to buy a stack of glossy magazines. She got him a motoring magazine he'd had his eye on, but refused his money.

"I can probably put this on travel expenses, so don't worry," she said, stuffing her magazines into her carry-on bag.

"Think they'd pay for me to buy a PlayStation?" George asked through a mouthful of Skittles.

"Probably not," Katie smiled. "Anyway, not so many Skittles, you're supposed to eat them on takeoff and landing in case it upsets your ears."

George shrugged. "I can always buy more, right?"

"It's not the cost I'm worried about, it's the fact that you'll be hyper all the way there," Katie tutted. "We'd better go to the gate, it's five minutes until boarding opens."

The only time George had been on a commercial airliner was on the way back from the end of basic training in the US, which had been a seven-hour flight that he'd slept through nearly all of. For once he was going to be able to enjoy it, and Katie gave up her window seat so he could stare out of the window at the planes moving around in the darkness.

"Don't bother me when I'm tired or there will be trouble," Katie said severely when he started playing with the in-flight entertainment system.

"Okay sis," George replied in a cheeky tone, earning himself a dark look before he went back to browsing the choice of films.

They switched the system off during take-off, so George just stared out of the window and did his best not to disturb Katie, who was reading one of her boring magazines.

George slept all the way through the second leg from Shanghai, so he was feeling refreshed when they arrived in Melbourne. They had to join a long queue at immigration, but they had their passports stamped and were walking into arrivals by half past eight local time. George was off-form after the long flight and it took him a second to process why Katie was pointing to a sign with 'Brian and Chelsea' on it. The lady holding it had wavy blonde hair and was wearing a smart business suit, but she pulled both of them into hugs when they reached her.

"Hi Aunt Alice," Katie said, extracting herself from the hug. "Good to see you."

"Hi Chelsea, Brian, welcome to Australia," Alice said, giving them both a huge smile and a good look at her pearly-white teeth. "I'm parked in short-stay so we'd better hurry. Let me get one of your bags."

It was overcast as they got their first look at Melbourne, but the airport was on the outskirts of the city and they didn't see much except houses.

"ASIS have swept the car and the house for bugs, so you can talk openly here," Alice explained. "I'll fix you some breakfast and then we'll go shopping in the afternoon for anything you need. Are you jet lagged?"

Katie shook her head. "We managed to stay up long enough, but it'll probably be an early night tonight."

"That's fine. I don't know what kinds of foods you like so we can go to a supermarket too. I think some ASIS operatives are scheduled to meet with you tomorrow, but you can just settle in today. Let me know if you need anything."

George laid out on the back seats, wondering whether to go to sleep, while Katie and Alice chatted in the front. Both of them had similar hairstyles and builds, which made the family connection seem even more believable, but the more they talked the more Alice seemed to warm to Katie.

"I was just like you when I was your age," Alice said, turning off the main road into a suburban housing area. "I bet you've had a string of boyfriends."

Katie giggled and stuck to the cover story. "I had a few, but they're back in Sydney now."

"Well I'm sure you'll find a few more here, especially over the summer. You both have cool British accents, too."

"Will people make fun of them?" Katie asked.

Alice shrugged. "Probably not, there are enough people around with non-Australian accents that it won't make much difference, I expect."


End file.
